Public Bill Committee

Clause 19

Visits to children in long-term care

Question proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question again proposed.

Kevin Brennan: I appreciate that we will probably have further discussions about the topics relating to clause 19 when we get to the new clauses. I am sure that no one on the Committee has any particular problem with this clause and, therefore, propose that it stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Designated member of staff at school for pupils looked after by a local authority

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 17, in clause 20, page 16, line 4, leave out from ‘designate’ to ‘as’ in line 5 and insert—
‘(i) at least one member of the teaching staff at the school (“the designated person”); and, additionally and separately,
(ii) at least one member of the governing body who is not a teacher’.

Hywel Williams: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 28, in clause 20, page 16, line 5, after ‘school’, insert ‘who is a qualified teacher’.
No. 18, in clause 20, page 16, line 6, after ‘achievement’, insert
‘, and for reporting the educational progress to the foster carer or other appropriate carer,’.
No. 29, in clause 20, page 16, line 6, after ‘achievement’, insert ‘and well-being’.
No. 30, in clause 20, page 16, line 11, at end insert—
‘( ) The governing body must designate a member of the governing body (“the designated governor”) as having responsibility for oversight of the provision made under subsection (1).
( ) The governing body must ensure that the designated governor is provided with all relevant information to assist him in the discharge of his functions.’.

Tim Loughton: Here we are dealing with an old bugbear regarding schooling and the relationship of children in care to their teachers. Many of us have said for some time that there are two main groups of children for whom special provisions need to be made, aside from those who have learning disabilities and obvious requirements like that, and they are children in the care system and young carers. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and I have slaved our way down to the Southampton to the annual young carers festival for some time.

Kevin Brennan: While the hon. Gentleman is on that point he might like to know that last Saturday I went as well.

Tim Loughton: We were delighted to hear that because, as we have pointed out, we had not had a Labour Minister or MP down there for some time—I am not trying to be critical—although we used to when the hon. Member and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole I started doing the MPs’ question time at the children’s request. It was great to hear. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West was appreciated and that he enjoyed it as well because it is always extraordinary. That is entirely out of order, Mr. Williams, because it is not the question in hand.
There are two groups of pupils for whom special attention and recognition by a key member of staff is essential. The group germane to the Bill are looked-after children. Clause 20 includes designating a member of staff to be the key link for looked-after children. My problem is that subsection (1) refers only to
“a member of the staff at the school”
being the designated person. The intention and direction of the clause is right but it is not good enough because the designated person could be a school caretaker, a games assistant or somebody like that—perfectly worthy individuals though they may be. To take the problems seriously, we think that a properly qualified member of the teaching staff must become the designated person. It needs to be somebody who understands the educational requirements of that child, who can communicate with other teachers, the head teacher and governors on an equal basis and who has authority.
Children in the care system obviously have particular educational needs. As we have heard from the statistics that have been bandied about, they are much more likely to do badly at school, not least because of the lack of continuity in their education. There are also problems with the image of looked-after children’s poor achievement and outcomes, so some schools would prefer not to have them because it may bring down their averages. Those are considerations that looked-after children have to face. It is therefore absolutely right that special provisions be made by a school to ensure that the special needs of looked-after children are recognised and taken on board at the highest level within those schools.
That may mean that the school must chase the responsible social worker, if that responsible social worker is not performing the role of a “pushy parent” that I would like to see them play. A child who happens to be in the care system is entitled to no lesser degree of attention from the responsible person or body, which could be a social worker, as he or she would get from a responsible parent. That could mean turning up to parents evenings demanding to know why the child is lagging behind, for example, or expressing concerns about bullying or liaising with the school on a whole host of matters. Clearly, because of the pressures on social workers, which we have previously discussed, a social worker may not be in a position to play as active a role in overseeing a child’s education as one might like.
I have mentioned innovative authorities such as Barnet that have introduced a buddy system, whereby an officer of the authority will buddy up with a looked-after child. One of their roles will be to look at their school report and to monitor their educational progress and, if necessary, ring up the school and say “What is going wrong here?” It would be helpful if there is a designated teacher who will be their first point of call, be that for a social worker or an extended family member whom one wants to encourage to have an interest in the child’s progress.
Therefore, the clause is to be welcomed, but it needs to be beefed up, hence amendment No. 17 states that a member of the teaching staff must be the designated person. However, the amendment goes further: the second part of it would provide for a responsible governor. The measure applies to young carers and many of us have argued for it before. Recognising the teacher so that they feel that they have the clout to argue the case for looked-after children would be greatly improved and enhanced by introducing a separate, responsible governor, someone other than the teacher—as it stands the designated person could be the teaching representative on the governing body—to oversee the provisions for looked-after children. They would be the line manager, as it were, for the designated teacher. That would send out a clear signal to schools that the special requirements of looked-after children, which result from the fact that educational outcomes for looked-after children have been a scandal for too many years, are a priority and that schools need to have a structure in place that can cope with that and make it a reality. Amendment No. 17 would ensure that a properly qualified teacher, in partnership with a governor, are directly responsible for overseeing the fortunes of children in the care system who attend their schools.
Amendment No. 18 specifies that there should also be a responsibility for both those individuals to report
“the educational progress to the foster carer or other appropriate carer”.
Another flaw in the system is that, too often, it is difficult to get information out of the school on how a child is actually doing, particularly foster carers. If a foster carer is doing his or her job properly, as the vast majority of them fortunately do, and if we expect a foster carer to be as close to a natural parent as possible and to play the role of a birth parent, which could include being a “pushy parent” when it comes to asking questions about whether a child is doing well at school, we should ensure that they automatically have an entitlement to know about the performance of the child at school, receive reports and hold a conversation with the relevant teachers or whoever on an established basis, so that they are fully informed about the child’s school progress. They will then be able to ask all the right questions. At the moment that does not happen in many cases.
Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 would require that there be designated teachers who know about the requirements of looked-after children, a governor to oversee that and that foster carers should have access to educational information about the child. They would then be able to ensure that they were doing well and ask the right questions if they were not. Such requirements would add some real beef to the well intentioned clause. They would make its provisions a reality rather than the wish list that they might become. I have some sympathy for the amendments that are being advocated by the Liberal Democrats in a similar vein. On that basis, I commend amendments Nos. 17 and 18 to the Committee.

Angela Watkinson: I wish to speak briefly in support of amendments Nos. 17 and 18. The two secondary schools for which I am governor have extremely good pastoral care departments. I have asked a number of head teachers in my constituency how many looked-after children they have on their rolls. Most of them said none, but they did not say they did not know. I am assuming that there is a very good process between social services and education departments so that schools are always aware if they have looked-after children on their rolls.
It is important that somebody is available for a looked-after child. When they arrive in school, they are more likely to be having a crisis day than the average pupil. There are more opportunities for stress and more things that will concern them. If only one teacher is designated to be a friend, adviser and mentor to a looked-after child, it is not possible for them to be available at every moment. It is not possible for them to be available when the child arrives in school every morning. If two teachers are designated, it is more likely that somebody will be available to take control of a crisis. If a governor is also designated, although they are in school only from time to time, there is an extra option for that child.
It is important that children have an adult to whom they can relate. Personality and character come into that. If they relate to one of the three designated people and feel more comfortable opening up and disclosing personal problems to them, they are likely to disclose more than if only one of the other designated people was available. It is therefore a very good idea that there be two or even three people available to a looked-after child if they are having a bad day or if there is an ongoing problem that the school needs to be aware of.
Amendment No. 18 includes reporting educational progress. With most children, parents will come to the school on parents’ evening, which is an annual occasion. If they have problems in between those events, they will get in contact with the class teacher or the head teacher. With looked-after children, there is more potential for social problems that could affect their educational progress so more frequent access to the school is a huge advantage. More frequent access to school, more discussion and more reporting on their educational progress could head off other social problems that are brewing up in the background that adults are not aware of.
My understanding is that the number of such pupils in any one school will be very small so this will not be an onerous task in addition to the great number of functions that teachers have to perform. Most of my schools had good pastoral care departments and would be only too pleased to take on this role. It will be hugely advantageous to the looked-after children in our schools. It will not only maximise their aspiration and their ambition to succeed, and give them the best possible future and opportunities for training, further education and a productive career, it will safeguard their emotional well-being.

Mark Williams: I very much want to endorse what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said and the practical case studies highlighted by the hon. Member for Upminster. The first point I want to make concerns clarity. I welcome the thrust of the clause, but, as has already been said, does it go far enough? On Second Reading, the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, the right hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said:
“Clause 20 will make sure that there is a designated teacher in every school to give children in care the encouragement and personal support they need to realise their talents.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2008; Vol. 477, c. 727.]
Yet, here we are talking about a designated member of staff. That could be the caretaker, a games assistant and a range of individuals who work within the school community. Amendment Nos. 17 and 28 specify that it must be a member of the teaching staff or a qualified teacher. That is essential because it gives status to looked-after children. It is also about the practicalities of delivering those expectations of educational achievement and the needs of pastoral care, the child’s well-being, which amendment No. 29 seeks to pursue.
Amendment No. 29 seeks to build into the Bill the obvious point about holistic care and support for looked-after children. The Barnardo’s 2006 report, “Failed By The System”, revealed that 79 per cent. of young people who have been in care have no GCSEs or other educational qualifications when they leave school. But academic achievement and pastoral needs within the school community go hand in hand. One cannot separate the two.
Half of the young people in the Barnardo’s survey revealed that they had been bullied. Half the group had attended six or more schools; 11 per cent had attended more than 10 schools; 39 per cent. said that no one had attended a school parents’ evening; 48 per cent. said that nobody attended their sports days or school events. Educational achievement and self esteem go hand in hand. With the visitor provisions we talked about this morning, with a designated teacher clearly undertaking that pastoral role and with a link to foster carers, social workers or whoever, we can meet some of those challenges. If we get to the root of the self esteem issue educationally, we can move on and tackle many of the educational challenges.

Edward Timpson: I agree with everything that has just been said. It is important to emphasise that the partial aspect of the care plays a significant role in the general well-being of looked-after children within educational establishments. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the designated teacher also has the responsibility to ensure that the mental and behavioural well-being of the child in the school is part of their training? A growing number of looked-after children unfortunately suffer from an attachment disorder. Teachers should be aware of that and be trained to ensure that when they are dealing with each individual child they can assess those needs and feed that into their pastoral care. That will then improve their educational outcomes.

Mark Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I very much agree. As someone who endured a one-year course for a postgraduate certificate in education, I can testify to the limitations of teacher training in all areas of special needs and some of the behavioural problems that he has identified.
I hesitate to use the phrase “narrow educational achievement”, but I do not want the well-being of the child to be lost in a welter of percentages and academic targets. They go together. It should also be said that the needs of looked-after children are not always special educational needs. Yes, 28 per cent. of looked-after children have SEN statements, compared to 3 per cent. of the population, but we should not automatically assume, as the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said on Second Reading, that the SENCO should necessarily assume the role of a co-ordinator for looked-after children.
I pay tribute to the fact that the Bill wisely mentions, under clause 20(3), that the governing body will ensure that the designated person—a teacher, I hope—has qualifications and experience, a point made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich. If that role is to be effective, it requires a full awareness of the child’s background and circumstances as well as the operation of the care system. As a novice to these Committee proceedings, I find that the matter involves a welter of information of which I suspect many teachers are unaware, but which they need to be aware of when working with such children.
Amendment No. 30, in line with the provisions on SENCOs and special needs governors, would give looked-after children the same status by making a governor responsible for them. It is a chain of responsibilities: the teacher is responsible and accountable to the governor, and the governor is also equipped with appropriate training and advice. Although our names are not on amendment No. 18, I support its spirit. It is an acknowledgement that educational achievement cannot be viewed just within the confines of the classroom; it must be extended to the home environment and the person charged with care.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised the spectre of schools summoning social workers to hear about the educational progress or problems of particular children. It is important. Many of us have sat through countless special educational needs consultations with parents who refused to turn up, wishing that we had the capacity to bring them in. The amendment is laudable. It would build dialogue between carers and the children in school.
Above all else, the amendments are not about giving another member of staff or a governor a meaningless title. They are about acknowledging the needs of 60,000 children and young people and giving the school community the structure to support them educationally and—critically—pastorally, so that their educational and social entitlements can be met.

Annette Brooke: I shall be brief, as my hon. Friend and other hon. Members have made clear points. I refer to the situation discovered by the Education Select Committee. In some schools, SENCOs were teaching assistants. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 or resulting regulations stated that SENCOs should be qualified teachers; personally, I feel that they should also be members of the senior management team.
It is important that we understand why the Bill does not say “a member of the teaching staff”. I suspect that there is a reason for that, but it is important to understand why. I want particularly to specify that it should be a fully qualified teacher. As my hon. Friend explained, it is such an important job. It involves a mix of guiding through academic routes and trying to improve academic performance, but it also involves looking after the welfare of the child and addressing the various other needs that must be addressed before academic achievement can be attained.
I shall refer briefly to some good practice in Dorset. I attended a Dorset awards day for foster carers and children a couple of weeks ago at which I was involved in presenting certificates. It demonstrated a close working between the teachers in school, the local authority and foster carers. The latter were there with the children, and the certificates that I handed out were varied. One was for 100 per cent. attendance at the learning support centre. Another was for 100 per cent. attendance over the previous term. Some were for academic achievements in their GCSEs; others were for behaving well at home and helping around the house. It was a complete mix, but awarding and celebrating progress in the lives of those foster children brought all the services together quite beautifully and skilfully. A good day was had by all, as the rest of the day was a fun day with lots of entertainment. I mention that practice because it is worthy of being adapted by other local authorities.

Tim Loughton: We are heaping praise on Dorset. I seem to recall that Dorset piloted the giving of bursaries to children in the care system for particular education-related studies—for instance, more music lessons. That gave the authority control over its budget that it would not normally have had to allow pupils to pursue a subject in which they showed artistic, musical or educational promise. That was another example of good practice by Dorset.

Annette Brooke: I was very pleased that Dorset was selected for the 18-to-21 pilots. It is obviously is good practice, and we should share it whenever we can. I support all the amendments.

Kevin Brennan: I agree with the hon. Lady on the importance of having fun days, with lots of entertainment —which is obviously what we are having today.
The intention behind this small flourish of amendments to clause 20 is to ensure that the role of the designated person specified for children in a maintained school has the maximum impact. I sympathise with that intention. We should consider our history in trying to improve educational outcomes for looked-after children when discussing the amendments.
The clause goes back to the Quality Protects initiative of 1998, which started our focus on improving the educational outcomes for looked-after children both locally and nationally. We know much more about the subject than we did before introducing the national data collection in 2000. Before that, no one even checked to see how they were doing in school.
I shall be confessional for a moment. I have said publicly that during my career—I was in the teaching profession until 1994—my awareness of those children that might have had looked-after status in the classroom and the school was minimal. There was none of the focus that has rightly been introduced over the past few years, which has led to an improvement in outcomes. However, I think that we would all agree that that still is not good enough.
At first, we found that only 7 per cent. of looked-after children achieved five good GCSEs; by 2006, that figure had increased to 13 per cent. However, we should not exaggerate. The hon. Member for Ceredigion suggested that 79 per cent. of looked-after children had no GCSEs, but that is not quite true. In 2000, 49 per cent. had one GCSE, and the figure rose to 64 per cent. by 2007. Again, it is not good enough, but we should not exaggerate the problem.
In the Children Act 2004, we introduced a duty for local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children. Building on that duty, as part of the “Care Matters” agenda, we are introducing an annual personal education allowance of £500 for all looked-after children who are at risk of not reaching the nationally expected standards of attainment. It is intended to meet the costs of the sort of activities or resources needed to support looked-after children’s learning and development, in the same way that a good parent would seek to enrich their child’s education by making extra things available.
As it stands, subsection (1) requires the governing body of a maintained school to designate a member of staff as having a particular role in
“promoting the educational achievement of registered pupils ...who...are looked after by a local authority”.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Upminster about having a significant adult in school whom a young person can turn to, but that will not necessarily be the designated teacher for looked-after children. It might be a trusted subject teacher or form teacher. Specifically, the designated teacher’s job is to promote the educational achievement of registered pupils who are looked after by the local authority.
As the hon. Lady said, most schools have a small number of looked-after children on their roll, but we know that when there is someone in the school whose job it is to champion the educational needs of looked-after children, that can have a real impact on individual outcomes. Most schools already have a designated teacher for looked-after children, in line with the current good practice guidance, but although we have come quite a long way in raising awareness in schools of the needs of looked-after children, not all schools make specific provision for their needs.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion was right to point out that we should not assume that all looked-after children have special educational needs. I met a young man in Birmingham who told me that he never told anyone that he was in care until quite some time into the acquaintance because he felt that he would be judged immediately in exactly that fashion when in fact he fully intended—and I completely believed him—to qualify as a doctor in the next few years and was obviously a very bright and academically able young man. As the hon. Gentleman said, we should not make such assumptions.
However, because schools do not always make specific provision, it came out quite clearly in the “Care Matters” consultation that we need to take action to put the requirement on a statutory footing and to make it a requirement for all governing bodies of all maintained schools to appoint a designated teacher to ensure that the role is given the status and recognition that it deserves. I say “teacher” because the intention is—I have said this publicly previously—that it should be a teacher. I shall say more about that in a moment. This is a very effective way significantly to improve educational outcomes for looked-after children. We will use the regulation-making power in subsection (3) to require the governing body to ensure that the designated person has the necessary qualifications and experience—in particular, qualified teacher status. There may be examples, which I shall come to, in which that does not necessarily need to be the case, but it will be the norm.
In addition, we will issue statutory guidance to governing bodies, setting out in some detail the role and responsibilities of the designated teacher. I am referring to the role of the designated teacher in assessing the child’s educational needs and in making arrangements for co-operating with the local authority, especially in relation to the development of the child’s personal education plan. Guidance will also stress the sorts of administrative task that could be undertaken by non-teaching staff acting in support, as well as the importance of ensuring that the school’s policy on pastoral care is effective for looked-after children.
Under amendments Nos. 18 and 30, a designated governor would be appointed to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children. That would be in addition to the designated teacher. The amendments would also ensure that the governor had the necessary information to discharge that role effectively. I agree with the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Upminster about the significant role that school governors can and should play. It is right that they pay proper attention to promoting the educational achievement of looked-after children on their roll, and certainly governors and staff need to understand that school can often be a particular haven of consistency and continuity in the lives of looked-after children. That has implications for the way in which schools work to support their educational achievement.
However, clause 20, supported by the appropriate statutory guidance, will ensure that that happens and, indeed, will make it clear that the governing body should expect to receive a regular report on the work of the designated teacher and on outcomes for looked-after children who are pupils at the school. Governing bodies have a legal duty to promote high standards of educational achievement and well-being for all pupils at the school, including looked-after children. The governing body’s role is and should be essentially a strategic one. Of course, there is nothing to prevent a governing body from identifying a link governor to lead on issues relating to looked-after children, but the governing body overall remains responsible for any decisions taken. We will make that absolutely clear when we issue governing bodies with statutory guidance on the role and responsibilities of the designated teacher.
It is encouraging that awareness among school governors of the needs of looked-after children has increased significantly in recent years. We are committed to ensuring that school governors are provided with training to help them understand the needs of looked-after child and effectively hold schools to account. We expect to use the statutory guidance on the role and responsibilities of the designated teacher to set out clearly what governors need to put in place.
The guidance will build on that produced in 2005 by the former Department for Education and Skills, in partnership with the Who Cares? Trust and the Advisory Centre for Education. The 2005 guidance, which was called “Supporting Looked After Learners—A Practical Guide for School Governors”, was designed to help individual governors gain an understanding of the experiences of looked-after children in schools and of the challenges that they need to overcome if they are to succeed.
Amendment No. 18 seeks to ensure that foster carers and others who care for looked-after children are informed of their educational progress. It goes without saying that it is vital that those who are responsible for a looked-after child—whether as a foster carer or in a residential setting—receive regular and comprehensive information about the child’s educational progress. Indeed, we would expect all those who are responsible for the care of a looked-after child to help them meet their full potential. For a number of reasons, however, amendment No. 18 is not necessary to achieve that aim.
Under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005, schools are already required to provide an annual report to the parent of every child who is a registered pupil at the school, and that includes looked-after children. For the purposes of education law, a parent includes anyone who has parental responsibility or who has care of the child. That includes foster carers and a child’s key residential worker in a children’s home. Schedule 1 of the regulations clearly lists what information the report should contain, including brief particulars of achievements in all subjects and activities that form part of the school curriculum, plus comments on the child’s general progress and details of the arrangements for discussing their reports with their teacher.
The intention behind the duty that clause 20 places on the governing body is very precise. The governing body must appoint a designated person whose specific role it will be to promote the educational achievement of registered pupils at the school who are looked after by a local authority. A key aspect of that role will be to ensure that the school works closely with the child’s carers and the local authority, which will also have a particular duty to promote the child’s educational achievement, as I said.
As I indicated, we will issue statutory guidance to governing bodies setting out in detail what we expect the designated teacher to do to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children at their school. Among other things, the guidance will cover helping the child’s carers to get involved in supporting the child’s education, regularly assessing the child’s progress, identifying any additional needs and participating in the development of the child’s personal education plan and in the regular six-monthly reviews of that plan.
The personal education plan forms part of the child’s care plan, and we have made it clear in statutory guidance that social workers should fully involve the child’s carers and, where appropriate, their parents in drawing up the child’s personal education plan. Social workers should also work in partnership with the designated teacher to ensure that the plan sets clear objectives and targets and clearly identifies the additional support that the child will need to achieve those targets. The regulations that apply to the regular reviews of the child’s case require the child’s educational needs, progress and development to be considered at the six-monthly review. Through statutory guidance, we make it clear that the child’s carers should be involved in that review in addition to the child’s parents.
Amendment No. 28 makes provision for the designated person to be a qualified teacher. We would not disagree with that; indeed we made that intention clear in the “Care Matters” White Paper and in debate on similar amendments in the other place. Although I understand the reasons for wanting to ensure that the role of the designated person is performed by a teacher, the best way of dealing with the issue is to set out in regulations precisely who is qualified for the job. In most cases, we would expect the role to be filled by a teacher with qualified teacher status, but there might be some exceptions to that. Some teachers can practise without qualified teacher status, such as overseas-trained teachers, as members of the Committee will know. Of course, there are also those who started their careers before the current training requirements came into force.
The key point is that it is better to specify that in regulation, rather than doing so rigidly through primary legislation, because that will allow for changes to be made more easily in line with changes in teacher training without the need for further primary legislation. To have the necessary flexibility, it is much better that that is done through regulation. The power to prescribe qualifications through legislation will enable us to update the qualifications of the designated person, if there is any change in the framework of teacher qualifications, without the delay of amending primary legislation.
Amendment No. 29 would make the designated person responsible for promoting the well-being of looked-after children and championing their educational achievement. On Second Reading, the hon. Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and for Ceredigion spoke about the need to ensure that the designated teacher takes sufficient account of pastoral needs as well as academic achievement. Again, we do not disagree that an holistic approach is required. The designated teacher should discharge his or her responsibilities for looked-after children registered in the school in that holistic way, but the amendment is not needed for that to be achieved. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 already places the governing body of a maintained school under a duty to promote the well-being of all pupils in a school, including looked-after children, and that is in addition to their duty under the Education Act 2002 to ensure that they promote the welfare of all the children on their roll. Since 2005, Ofsted has been under a duty to report on the contribution that schools make to their pupils’ well-being. The well-being duty on schools ensures that they focus specifically on the five “Every Child Matters” outcomes, as defined in section 10 of the Children Act 2004—I will not go into the detail because I know that members of the Committee are familiar with them.
The designated teacher will therefore have an important role in championing the well-being of looked-after children and raising awareness of their particular needs. We want the primary focus of that role to be on raising expectations about teaching and learning for looked-after children and supporting them to achieve their full potential. Given the significant attainment gap between looked-after children and children generally, which we all know about, we need make no apology for having that at the forefront I hope that I have offered reassurance on how seriously we take the role of designated teachers and of school governors in ensuring that looked-after children have the support that they need to reach their potential. I hope that hon. Members will, on that basis, feel that they can withdraw their amendments.

Tim Loughton: I am a bit disappointed, which I have not been much in the Committee so far. The Minister seems to be moving into a position in which it would be easy for him to accept at least one of the amendments in this small flourish of amendments, as he described it earlier. He made all the right noises and pointed to the problems with the educational achievement gap, which we all know about and which has been widening. He pointed out that the 7 per cent. achievement on the O-level criteria has improved to around 12 or 13 per cent. The achievement by children who are not in care has improved rather more, so that last year the gap worsened. Children in care are being left behind, and more so than their cohort as a whole. That is also an important consideration for children in care, because some 80 per cent. of the 61,000 children in the care system in England and Wales are of school age.
This goes to the heart of what is essential for improving conditions for looked-after children in the education system. It was not therefore a surprise to me that the Minister agreed with everything that we said. He also said that the Government will set out in guidance the role of the designated teacher—I think that he said “teacher” and not “member of staff”. He agreed with the significant role of governors in promoting educational achievement, and said that that there would be regular reports to governors. Everything he said seemed to agree with what we had said, but then he ruined it by saying that the amendments were not necessary because the issues could be set down in guidance. Clearly, the Minister has got confused as to what is a designated member of staff and what is a designated teacher; he slipped seamlessly from one term to the other, without realising that the Bill does not say “designated teacher”. I could not find in any of his comments any downside to putting “designated teacher” rather than “designated member of staff” in the Bill. He gave lots of good reasons why the amendments were well intentioned and appropriate, and no good reasons why the Committee should not adopt them, at least those relating to a designated teacher and a designated governor.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion made some good points in support of his amendment, which is based on the same principle as the amendments in my name and those of my hon. Friends. He showed from his experience how much more attention needs to be given to the issue by teaching staff. As he said, it is not a question of meaningless titles, but of proper titles being given to the right people along with the right tools to do the job, backed up in statute. That is what the amendment is about. He quoted my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, who said that this should not be another job that gets piled automatically on the SENCO—the general repository of all things slightly odd. The job needs to be done by somebody who is focused on looked-after children and who has the appropriate training, overseen by the governors. There will also be a governor with the responsibility of ensuring that that training has taken place, and that reports on the progress of looked-after children and the school’s policy towards such children are discussed at governors’ meetings, that they are not just another little box that you have to get around to ticking. The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the governing body is responsible for overseeing that, but it would be so much better if there was a designated governor who was responsible for ensuring that the governing body was doing everything that it should be—not just the minimum—to ensure that the policy was implemented. It is not the designated teacher who will be responsible for that, but the head and the senior staff severally, on the same basis that it will be the governing body jointly and severally. Again, I could not see a downside to a designated governor in what the Minister said.
I take the Minister’s point that the information that I called for should, under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005, be made available to every person with parental responsibility for a child. He gave a satisfactory answer on that matter, and also regarding amendment No. 30 on promoting well-being, in that that is catered for elsewhere. The Minister did not make a case for why having a designated teacher and a designated governor would in any way damage the Bill or hamper—beyond what is intended by forthcoming regulations—the role of the school in doing what we want it to do. On that basis and to ensure that the Committee is awake, I will push the amendment to a vote. I ask the Committee to support the lead amendment, which is about having a designated teacher and a designated governor.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21

Entitlement to payment in respect of higher education

Annette Brooke: I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 21, page 17, line 3, after ‘higher education’, insert
‘or further education and training, including apprenticeships’.

Hywel Williams: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 32, in clause 21, page 17, line 8, after ‘higher education’, insert
‘or further education and training, including apprenticeships’.

Annette Brooke: I had better say at the outset that this is a probing amendment because I rather suspect that I have applied my thoughts to the wrong clause. However, I hope that the Minister will accept the argument that I put forward even if the amendment is tabled in a highly technically inefficient way.
The amendment is about parity of treatment for care leavers in their future education. I welcome the support that is offered in the clause to previously looked-after people who decide to go to university. Ministers have pointed out that only 6 per cent. of looked-after children go on to university. There is a massive discrepancy between that figure and that for the rest of the population. I therefore appreciate the bursary. However, it is also important to appreciate that 30 per cent. of care leavers aged 19 are not in education, employment or training. While the gap is not quite as large as with the university figure, it is still highly significant that a third of care leavers are not in education, employment or training. When the Children, Schools and Families Committee looked at this issue, it recommended that a broader bursary system be introduced for looked-after children in post-16 education and training.
I recognise that the Government are putting forward support in clause 22 in the way of a personal adviser in certain circumstances. The Government have responded in other arenas by saying that they have measures to support young people who are not in education, employment or training, such as by not charging fees for courses. If we want to ensure that we put as much emphasis on carrying on in training as on going to university, we must give a little more financial assistance to care leavers. I have deliberately included apprenticeships in the amendment because that could be an area where just that little bit of extra support is needed.
I hope that the Minister will respond to the general principle rather than the adequacy of the amendment and say why there should not be more assistance for the important proportion of care leavers who are not in education, employment or training and will not immediately take a university route, but who need support at this vital time.

Kevin Brennan: The hon. Lady is as candid as ever in her charming way on the amendments. I will try to answer in the spirit in which she has invited me to respond. “Care Matters” set out an ambitious and wide-ranging programme of work to support the education and training of looked-after children and to ensure that they are supported in making a successful transition into adult life. Ensuring that they are able to pursue their chosen path post-18 depends on high quality support earlier on. To ensure that they have the best quality education possible, we have given them the highest priority in school admissions, we have put the role of the designated teacher—I am happy to say that again on the record—for looked-after children on a statutory footing, we have introduced an annual personal allowance of up to £500 for looked-after children at risk of not reaching the expected national targets and we are changing the way that local authorities support the education of looked-after children by piloting virtual school heads. There are therefore a lot of initiatives.
Support to enable looked-after children and care leavers to thrive in education goes wider than schools, as the hon. Lady said. That is why we have had the right to be cared for pilots, which give looked-after children greater involvement in deciding when they move to independence. Similarly, as we debated earlier, the “Staying Put” 18-plus family placement pilots give young adults the chance to remain with their former foster carers post-18 to provide additional stability.
We will come to provisions of the Bill that extend the entitlement to a personal adviser up to the age of 25 for all care leavers in education or training, or who want to return to education or training. That will be defined in the widest possible way. Access to a personal adviser will mean that care leavers have access to a pathway plan to set out their education and training needs and how they will be met. The support of the local authority will enable them to meet their ambitions.
We are committed across the piece to enable all care leavers, not just those going to university, to make the choices about education and training that are right for them, as we are for all young people. Leaving care services should ensure that young people are supported in the choices that they make and should help them to maximise the assistance that is available to support their learning, particularly through the provision of the personal adviser and the maintenance of the pathway plan.
The Government have also introduced a range of other support to help young people entering education, including care leavers. It includes fee remission and help with other costs, such as books and travel, for all young people. Tuition costs for first level 2 or 3 qualifications will be met in full for all young people up to the age of 25. Financial help is available through adult learning grants, and learner support is offered based on the needs of the individual. Priority is given to the most disadvantaged, and those in care are identified as one of the priority groups for that learner support. In addition, where a former relevant child is in full-time further or higher education, sections 23C and 24B of the Children Act 1989 enable local authorities to provide suitable accommodation during the vacation or pay the young person enough to enable them to secure their own accommodation.
I understand and appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns and the sentiment behind the amendments. I hope that the Committee will understand that the Government are committed to providing support for care leavers in a range of education and training, but we must also recognise the situation regarding care leavers’ access to higher education. Only 6 per cent. of care leavers aged 19, as the hon. Lady said, are in higher education, and that figure has remained largely unchanged for a number of years. I think that we would all agree that that is not acceptable.
The work undertaken on the “Care Matters” Green and White Papers revealed clear evidence that looked-after children face significant additional barriers to higher education. For example, they finish higher education with an average of £2,000 more debt than their peers. During the consultation, children and young people said that many care leavers are put off higher education by the belief that they will not be able to meet the additional costs involved. Some 83 per cent. of young people at consultation events for the National Children’s Bureau “What Makes the Difference?” Green Paper thought that the £2,000 bursary for higher education was a very good idea, and I am sure that Committee members agree. Some 73 per cent. thought that it would encourage more young people in care to go on to higher education.
Although I understand the hon. Lady’s motivation, I hope that she will accept my reassurance that we are committed to supporting care leavers in further education and training, including apprenticeships; and that that she will recognise that the clause acknowledges the unique position of care leavers who enter higher education. The evidence is clear about the specific support that they need to encourage them to take up higher education without incurring additional debt. I hope that she will agree to withdraw her amendment and support the clause.

Annette Brooke: I certainly support the clause. It is important. I am, of course, rather disappointed by the Minister’s reply, because it is important to identify additional areas where care leavers need support. I appreciate the point about the personal adviser. We hope that the many measures to support young people as they go through school will help to improve the situation, and that the percentage of looked-after children who are not in education, employment or training will be monitored. With that comment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 22 and 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 24

Extension of power to make payments in cash

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Annette Brooke: I wish to ask the Minister a few questions about the clause. In previous discussions, some of us have voiced our concern that kinship care is not always given enough cash support when it is most needed. The clause is important because it opens the door to more payments. The problem is that I can see that there will be great variation in local authorities’ use of the removal from section 17(6) of the 1989 Act of “in exceptional circumstances”. I would be worried if there were to be no regulations and guidance on the provision, to ensure that we are truly promoting kinship care.
I seem to hear more and more from professionals that there are barriers to kinship care because money is not available at the vital time. Although I appreciate that the clause offers more, I would like an assurance that it will make a difference and will support what everybody wants, which is that that where kinship care is appropriate, it is given every support and encouragement possible.

Beverley Hughes: I thank the hon. Lady for that question. She is right: the intention in clarifying the provision is to alleviate local authorities’ confusion about how much flexibility they have in providing financial support to promote children’s welfare and their upbringing by members of their family or friends. It is important to say that that does not mean that local authorities can be expected to provide income maintenance for families—I made that point earlier in our discussions. It is important that the lines are clear on where families need to go for that sort of income maintenance and on whom the additional costs for taking in a child, who is perhaps a member of the family, lie. It is important that it is clear that those costs are appropriate for local authorities to consider meeting.
We will produce guidance, which will make it plain that families are expected to take full advantage of the sources of financial support available to them. The guidance will also set out examples of additional costs that families will incur. Obviously we expect families to apply for child benefit and other state benefits that relate to caring for children, but the clause will enable local authorities to meet the transitional costs of taking in children.

Annette Brooke: I am going for belt and braces here, because I am sure that there will be consultation on that guidance, but may I have assurances that there will be consultation on that guidance, because I think that the input of bodies that have made representations to us would be helpful in ensuring that we have coverage. I appreciate the point made in our previous debate about not supporting general family costs.

Beverley Hughes: We will consult on all the guidance that we produce, so we will consult on that as well. We want to remove local authorities’ confusion and to enable them to make payments to families and kinship carers in a way that they have felt constrained from doing in the past. I hope that the hon. Lady is happy with my assurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 25

Breaks from caring for disabled children

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 20, in clause 25, page 19, line 38, at end insert ‘appropriate’.
The amendment is probing and is intended to give the Committee the opportunity to ask questions about the clause. We welcome the clause and the work that has gone into it. The measure originated with the Secretary of State who, when he was a Back Bencher, did some good work on the role of carers for disabled children and the need to give better support for carers, who are often parents or other family members, and who do a remarkable job caring for disabled children day in, day out. Many of them do so in challenging conditions, with little recognition and not nearly enough support from the state.
Without the work of those carers, the bill that would fall on the state would be considerable, let alone the additional hardship for the disabled children themselves. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to carers, who take upon themselves, often unasked and without demurring from the challenge, the enormous role of looking after disabled children and giving them as much love and attention as they possibly can within a home environment. That is to be applauded, and we should be putting every service at their disposal, rather than putting obstacles in their way, which happens too often. It is always a great frustration to me when I am told about yet another piece of bureaucracy or yet more form filling that a carer will have to go through to get a basic entitlement for the person for whom they care.
It is welcome that the Bill includes a provision for carers to take breaks from their duties, that it recognises them in that way, and that the Government have given a sum of money for that purpose. We hope that that is only the first instalment, because this is a huge enterprise and we are talking about a large number of children and their carers. I have seen carers in my constituency for whom the odd bit of respite—it could be a weekend off or a week away, just to regain their sanity and to spend time with their partners, husbands, wives or whatever—can make all the difference. It can help them to recharge their batteries and allow them to get on with what would otherwise be the 365-day-a-year job of looking after somebody with a disability. That could provide an enormous boost and would be great for allowing people to recharge their batteries to enable them physically to be able to do the job. It is also a positive recognition that the job that they do is greatly appreciated. We should be doing more to make it easier for them to carry out their job.
The Opposition welcome the extra provisions that will enable carers to have breaks. Subsection (3) is about assisting
“individuals who provide care for such children to continue to do so, or to do so more effectively, by giving them breaks from caring”.
The amendment would simply add a rider that the breaks should be “appropriate”. Usually, people do not ask for much, but they ask for breaks at appropriate times—when pressure has built up, for example, or when they can take a whole week off. We are not talking about a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there, although some carers need such breaks. Carers simply want to know that they are entitled to breaks and that they can rely on the provision, so that they can take every Friday evening off or one Friday evening a month or whatever it might be. In any case, it must be “appropriate”. It is no good the local authority saying, “We can provide respite care for you between 2 o’clock and 6 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon every fifth week,” or such like if that does not fit in with what the carer needs and can use.
Inserting the word “appropriate”, subject to definitions within regulations, would give that extra bit of strength to the clause. Carers would not simply get a token bit of respite, for which they are meant to be grateful, but “appropriate” respite, as far as practicably possible, so that it really makes a difference and they are in a better position to resume and continue their very important role as carers for disabled children.

Angela Watkinson: I welcome the clause, which is a valuable part of the Bill, but I also support my hon. Friend in wishing to add the word “appropriate” towards the end of subsection (3). A break from caring for a child with special needs has to be free from worry; otherwise, it does not have the desired effect. That is especially important when the child has special needs that relate to behaviour or the way in which they respond to people and their surroundings. Children on the autistic disorder spectrum, in particular, are a good example: they do not respond well to change in either their environment or the people around them. They like things to be familiar and they enjoy their routine. They are also accomplished escapers, so it is very important that the provision for them is in a safe environment and that highly trained and appropriately trained people are looking after them.
“Appropriate” provision means provision of a safe environment and specially trained staff who understand the challenges that such children face. Most children’s services know very well what is needed and are highly sympathetic to the families caring for a child with profound needs, but often they do not have the funding to provide that very specific, appropriate accommodation.
There is an organisation in my constituency called RAGS—Romford Autistic Group Support. It is a group of parents who have children on the autistic spectrum. I happen to be patron of that charity, and when I meet the parents they tell me stories about their everyday lives that illustrate how difficult their lives are. They do not experience normality as we accept it. Lack of sleep is a recurring theme. One mother told me that her child can stay awake for a week and the only time she can get to sleep is when he is at school and she puts a “Do not disturb” notice on her front door. It is difficult to socialise. It is difficult to invite people to the home or to go out, even to the supermarket, because of the unpredictability of the children’s behaviour. There is great pressure on siblings, who are not able to invite friends home.
One mother told me last week at the organisation’s annual dinner that she has no off-street parking, and if there is no parking space outside her home when she gets back, the child will not get out of the car. If she stops outside an unfamiliar house, he will not get out because it is not his home, so she has to drive round for a while and then come back to their home and wait and hope that there will be a parking space outside it. Such things are taken for granted by those parents as part of their everyday life, but to us they seem an horrendous mountain to climb.
The challenge of coping with school holidays, when parents do not have that break when the child is at school, compounds the difficulties of everyday life. The challenge of just coping is enormous, and that is what makes respite care extremely important. I welcome the clause, but I think that the word “appropriate” is especially important when we are discussing provision for children with profound needs. The situation is unlike that of a child with, for example, mobility problems. It is relatively easy to make adaptations to buildings with ramps and low switches, so that children using wheelchairs can be accommodated. For children who have behavioural problems or who do not understand their surroundings, it is much more difficult to make proper provision and to have the staff who understand what they need, and there is a huge cost involved in that. I hope that the Minister will give some thought to how local authorities, with the best will in the world, will be able to provide what the Bill requires them to.

Annette Brooke: I would like to place it on the record that the Liberal Democrats strongly support the clause. We are pleased that it was included in the Bill, because there was considerable debate about whether it was necessary to place such a duty on the local authority. I am particularly pleased that Lord Adonis came to the view that it should be in the Bill.
I am not entirely convinced by the argument about the word “appropriate”, so I will listen to the Minister’s response to the amendment. I appreciate that the Government have put considerable financial resources into short breaks. It is very welcome, but it is such a huge area that almost unlimited demands could be placed upon that relatively small pot. As I understand it, for the most part that money will go to children with the most severe disabilities. I find it difficult to believe that a local authority would go out of its way to offer inappropriate respite care. I realise that the Minister may have more to say about that. There is no suggestion that I do not want disabled children to have appropriate care, but I am not convinced about this amendment.

Kevin Brennan: I am sorry to be so disappointing. It is part of the job sometimes. We all welcome the clause. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was right to single out the Secretary of State for the work that he has done. Many other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke), had parliamentary hearings on this matter.
As the hon. Member for Upminster said, we all come across examples in our constituencies of parents who have these sorts of caring responsibilities, looking after children who are often severely disabled. One of my constituents, Nia Wyn, wrote a bestseller on the subject called “Blue Sky July”, which was the book of the week on Radio 4 and book of the month on Radio 5. It was published by my wife, incidentally, and I recommend it to all members of the Committee. That is not a plug; the book is very pertinent to this subject.
This is very serious matter and everybody welcomes this initiative. Without respite services, parents often have no relief from their caring responsibilities. I am in no doubt that without short-break provision, the care population would grow considerably. That would be a cost to the state and to society as a whole. We should not forget either the wider benefits of short-break provision beyond relieving parents. Any parent can testify that it is beneficial and healthy for children to gain positive experiences away from home, to develop wider social networks and be exposed to new influences, be that with another trusted adult or in leisure or youth work based activities, where disabled children and young people can mix with their peers. Such opportunities for children’s personal and social development are vital.
Members of the Committee will know that the Government are committed to transforming short-break services and have set aside, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, significant additional funding for short-break services over the next three years: £359 million is to be provided to local authorities, alongside further funding to health care bodies to enable a combined approach. Clause 25 will ensure that short-break provision becomes a recognised part of local authority essential services, reflecting the importance that is attached to these services by families.
When I spoke to the young carers at Fairbourne manor last weekend, one of the things that they greatly welcomed was respite provision, because about a third of young carers look after a sibling rather than a parent. They welcomed the additional funds, as well as the broader measures in the carers strategy. The clause adds the provision of short breaks for parents and others caring for disabled children to the range of services that local authorities must provide for families, and in so doing puts the services on a statutory footing. 
The new duty makes it clear that breaks should be provided not just for those carers who are struggling to maintain their caring role, but to those for whom a break would improve the quality of the care that they can offer. Short breaks should not only be used as crisis intervention, but should also help carers to maintain and improve the quality of care that they naturally wish to provide. I saw good examples of that in Cardiff a few months ago, when I visited an NCH home where respite care was provided for children. The children I saw there were at the severe end of the autistic spectrum. We cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach.
We are taking steps to ensure that the significant investment that the Government will be making over the next three years will result in transformed services that are responsive to individual needs. It will include the appointment of a national support body to assist local authorities and primary care trusts in delivering change. We will also use a combination of regulation and guidance to ensure that local authorities design and deliver a range and variety of short-break provision capable of fitting the often complex lives of disabled children and their carers.
Now for the disappointing bit. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham may not be surprised to hear that we believe that the amendment is unnecessary. Clause 25 adds provision for short breaks for parents and others caring for disabled children to the range of services that local authorities must provide. Part 1 of schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989, which the clause amends, provides for some of the specific services that the local authority must provide under its general duties under section 17 of that Act. The general duty is
“to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need”
and to
“promote the upbringing...by their families, by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs.”
I thank hon. Members for their kind support for the clause and for their indulgence on the legal and technical point of substance. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the amendment is unnecessary, and I therefore ask him to withdraw it.

Tim Loughton: It is a disappointment, but not a great surprise. It was a probing amendment. The Minister and all members of the Committee have the same intention. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, particularly the extra £359 million that is being made available, and whether the provision will provide the sort of appropriate breaks that we know from our constituents are needed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster was right to mention the carers of children with autistic spectrum disorder-type challenges. I would surmise that we all know of difficult constituency cases where particular requirements are involved. As with children with physical disabilities, breaks may often involve carers looking after the child in the home. It is not necessarily a question of the child being shipped off, leading to the problems caused by a lack of familiarity with the surroundings, because the facilities that are needed are often already to be found in the home. It is a question of getting someone to come to the house in place of the carers, while they go away for a few days.
We have had a useful debate. I think that we all agree that it would be slightly churlish of me—I do not want to be accused again of being churlish by the hon. Member for Stafford—not to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 26

Power of Chief Inspector where person is failing to comply with requirement relating to children’s home etc.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Hywel Williams: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 37—Duty to collect and provide information for inspections—
‘In section 22(7) of the 2000 Act (regulation of establishments and agencies) after paragraph (1) insert—
“(m) make provision requiring the person who carries on, or manages, a children’s home to collect statistics on—
(i) instances of children going missing from the home;
(ii) instances of anti-social or violent behaviour by children accommodated at the home of a serious nature; and
(iii) acts of criminal damage perpetrated by such children,
and to provide such information, upon request, to any person authorised by the registration authority to inspect the premises.”’.
New clause 38—Consultation prior to preparation of inspection reports—
‘In section 32 of the 2000 Act (inspections: supplementary) after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) Before preparing a report in relation to the inspection of a children’s home under subsection (5)(a) the registration authority must—
(a) inform the local authorities which have placed children in the children’s home and, if different, the authorities in which children have been placed; and
(b) seek views on the performance of that home from—
(i) the Local Safeguarding Children Board established under the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) by the children’s services authority (within the meaning of that Act) in whose area the home is situated, and
(ii) the person designated under section 20 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 at any school attended by children in the home inspected.”’.
New clause 39—Provision of inspection reports—
‘In section 32 of the 2000 Act (inspections: supplementary) after subsection (6) insert—
“(6A) The registration authority shall provide copies of any report prepared in relation to a children’s home under subsection (5) to every children’s services authority within the meaning of the Children Act 2004 which has placed a child in the home and to each Local Safeguarding Children Board established by each of those authorities.”’.

Helen Southworth: I was motivated to table the new clauses because of concerns among a number of colleagues about evidence on the outcomes for some young people in care in children’s homes, and the difference between those outcomes and the inspection reports for those homes. We were motivated particularly by the concept, which is becoming commonly held, that parents share responsibility with their children for much of the children’s behaviour, and that parents should be held accountable to a degree when children engage in antisocial or criminal activities. That is because parents have a responsibility to guide and support their children and to ensure that they are aware of different ways of behaving and given chances to learn new and better ways of behaving. Most of all, children should be supported by their parents so that they do not travel down the paths that, unfortunately, far too many children have taken, which lead to criminal records and custodial sentences.
The purpose of the three new clauses is to get a virtuous circle, rather than a downward spiral, so that the different participants who support a child or young person in a children’s home work together effectively to ensure that the young person gets the support and intervention they need to achieve the sorts of successes that meet their potential.
New clause 37 would require children’s homes to keep records of specific activities that any good and responsible parent would notice, such as incidents of children going missing from the home. The current system of recording the reporting of a child going missing resulted in 23 children’s services departments being unable to tell the parliamentary all-party group for children who run away or go missing how many children in their own care had been reported missing to the police in 2005. Also, a significant number of children’s services departments that could give a response to that question gave a radically different response when asked the same question by their local police force. In many instances, the police forces had recorded a different number of young people who had been reported missing while in the care of the local authority than that local authority had.
When one looks at the pattern of who is responsible within a children’s services department, one will see that it is eminently possible for that sort of information not to be recorded effectively and passed to those who could do something about it. Indeed, one might say that some people have a vested interest in not recording it effectively, because it can draw attention to the fact that they are not parenting particularly effectively.
We need a proper, rigorous system for ensuring that those who are responsible for caring for children, ensuring that they have a safe and comfortable place to go and supporting them in that process are required to record instances when their children are reported missing to the police and make that information available on inspection so that they can be held accountable for it.

David Kidney: Does my hon. Friend take the view that, in order to have the full picture, it should be a requirement to record young persons absconding or committing an offence? Is she aware that it used to be best practice for inspectors to ask for that information and that Ofsted, now that it is responsible, has told inspectors that they do not need to ask for it and that the home does not need to record it because that is no longer required by regulation? Does that not show the importance of what she is putting forward today?

Helen Southworth: Absolutely. We have had a number of discussions with the Commission for Social Care Inspection, when it was responsible, and with Ofsted, because in 2002 the Department of Health’s guidance made that an indicator. However, reports have consistently not used it when inspections of the home have been made. In fact, a degree of frustration has been expressed by inspectors because, although they have a duty to do that, they could not do so because people were not required to keep that information and make it available to them.

Angela Watkinson: I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying and I am very supportive of it. She will know that most children who find themselves in care have experienced feckless parenting or disorganised households. They will not have learned all of the standards that we would expect children to experience during their childhood. Is it not quite shocking that on going into care they do not experience a far greater level of care and have greater values put in front of them? If they are absconding from the home, it indicates that things are failing very badly. That nobody is even recording their disappearance is quite shocking and is something that we must act on.

Helen Southworth: The hon. Lady raises something that has caused me a great deal of concern, especially when I tabled new clause 37. I felt that it was an unambitious new clause. I would have been far happier tabling a new clause requiring children’s homes to record and make available for inspection occasions of positive achievement by young people. It could have included how many young people are achieving high-quality GCSEs and A-levels and how many children are participating in school theatres of bands.
I found it very disappointing to put forward a requirement to record instances of children going missing, instances of antisocial or violent behaviour by children and acts of criminal damage perpetrated by children. That should not be what we are talking about. That is not what we expect for our children and these are our children. However, there comes a time when a baseline must be put down. We must say that these children have the right to expect minimum standards. These things should be included in those minimum standards.
The all-party group on runaway and missing children held evidence sessions towards the end of last year. Some very effective evidence was given to us by the police forces for Lancashire and Leicester, which had been doing intensive work in tracking why reports of missing children had been made to them. They looked at what had happened to the children and what the outcomes were. They used a very child-centred approach which was very effective.
Lancashire identified more than 300 children who went missing on at least three occasions in one year. Between them, they accounted for almost 3,200 of Lancashire’s missing persons investigations. The majority of those cases involved children in care, particularly those in residential care. Many of those children were prolific runaways. One child had been the subject of 78 missing person investigations in a single year. The police worked out that the cost of police services in investigating those reports was on average £1,000 each time. In one year, £78,000 was spent in addressing the problems of that young person.
That information is quite shocking when we consider our ambitions for supporting young people going into higher education and whether we can extend that to children who are going into apprenticeships or further education. Through failure, we can spend £78,000 in police time on not supporting effectively a young person in a local authority home. Local authority care homes should have to record these things and be accountable for the management of them. They must be open to intervention and support so that they can be more effective parents, rather than wait until the young people face the negative outcomes of being out on the street where they are subject to certain predators and likely to get involved in certain activities.
Leicester police said that the top 10 missing people for 2005 were responsible for 6 per cent. of the missing person reports for their police force. All of them were missing more than 10 times up to a maximum of 53. The top 10 had been the victims of 20 offences that were reported to the police and a total of 82 offences were linked to them, including 28 assaults and a variety of offences including burglary, theft and damage. They also commented that 70 per cent. of those offences were committed in the care home. They speculated whether, if those children had been in their homes rather than care homes, the police would have been involved, or whether proper intervention and decent parenting would have ensured that the children understood their actions and did not offend again. The purpose of new clause 37 is to ensure not that we record a downward spiral for young people but that we identify where early interventions are necessary in children’s homes to ensure effective support to give children in care a better outcome, not a worse one.
The virtuous circle involved in new clause 38 would ensure that the stakeholders responsible for the best interest of the child or young person placed in a children’s home are consulted and involved when an inspection report is being prepared. The designated teacher in the young person’s school, for example, would be able to give input on whether the relevant person from the home was attending parent-teacher meetings, whether the young person was getting help with their homework and bringing it in on time and whether they were attending school and participating effectively in school activities. Those are the kinds of thing that depend on parental support, or, in this case, the support of the person acting in loco parentis. Children and young people should not be expected to manage their own schooling, homework and environment.
The purpose of new clause 39 is to ensure that inspection reports return to the person with the most interest in ensuring that the child or young person has positive outcomes from their experience as a looked-after child. At the moment, Ofsted has no duty to provide reports to key stakeholders such as schools and agencies responsible for tackling crime and disorder. Reports are always sent to the registered individual as well as the registered manager, but that is it.
A placing authority, particularly if it is out of area, will not have the information that it needs to know whether a child or young person is having a positive experience in the home or whether they have absconded or run away—whatever word one wants to use; I do not like “absconding” very much—78 times in a year. That is absolutely essential information. None of us would allow our children to leave home if we did not know where they were going, what the reputation of the place was or how it was performing. We need to ensure that those reports are made available to the one person with that young person’s best interest at heart and the determining power over whether that young person remains in the placement or is given something more effective.

David Kidney: I agree with all that my hon. Friend has said, but I want to ask her a question. In Staffordshire, the county council, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have an inter-agency protocol designed to reduce the number of looked-after children who become involved in the criminal justice system. The partners have said to me that they are concerned that when children arrive in Staffordshire from another authority and are placed in the independent sector, the partners do not necessarily receive sufficient information to be able to work their protocol and give the same level of service to those children. Would anything in the new clause help those partners in the work that they want to do?

Helen Southworth: There are two things that I can say to that. One is that my own children’s services department has said something similar to me: “We don’t know what we don’t know.” That is crucial. We must ensure that they have the necessary information to carry out their roles, particularly when they are trying to do so effectively.

Angela Watkinson: In her investigations, has the hon. Lady found a wide variation across homes in the propensity of young people to abscond? Does she conclude from that that the quality of the staff has a big influence?

Helen Southworth: One of the problems that has been mentioned consistently by some of the excellent social workers and voluntary organisations working in this field, and by the police, are the push and pull factors. Young people can leave something that that they do not like, but they can also be enticed away by people with a vested interested. Young people in residential homes are particularly subject to such enticement. That is one of the reasons why there are so many young people coming into the criminal justice system, and there are some shocking examples of young women involved in prostitution—through people who have sought them out and groomed them—who have not had effective support in the residential homes.
The purpose of the new clauses is clear. It is to ensure that there is an underpinning framework that enables the purpose of the main clause—clause 26—to be achieved. Enforcement can then happen, but on an evidence base that is drawn from all the stakeholders involved in the young person’s well-being.

Kevin Brennan: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South for sparking an interesting debate, and I pay tribute—as I have done before—to her diligence in and around this subject. I also thank other hon. Members who participated. The debate has been useful for teasing out some of the issues on inspection—of children’s homes in particular—and what should and should not be reported. I replied not so long ago to an Adjournment debate on the subject, and I am aware of many of the issues that my hon. Friend raised.
On new clause 39, the Government agree very much that it is important that reports from Her Majesty’s chief inspector are available. We entirely agree that local authorities considering placing a child should consider all the available information in making such a decision, including recent inspection reports. As the hon. Lady said, the law currently provides that such reports should be made available. The chief inspector must send a copy of the report to each person who has registered in respect of the establishment, make copies of the report available for inspection at its offices by any person at any reasonable time and take other steps that she considers appropriate for publicising a report. Any person who asks Ofsted for a copy of a report is entitled to one. I know that hon. Members have encountered teething problems with that.
Ofsted is currently consulting on whether to publish its reports. That consultation, which runs until 16 September, seeks the views of the children and young people who live in children’s homes. That is important. Of course, it should also seek the views of hon. Members and I hope that they will give their views to it. The publication of inspection reports on children’s homes is sensitive, as I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South will acknowledge. Ofsted has not to date published such reports on its website for that reason. While reports do not name individual children, a significant number of homes care only for a small number of children and, in those circumstances, it may be harder to protect children if the reports are widely publicised.
It is essential that in seeking to improve communication between providers and commissioners, which I think is the purpose of her amendment, we do not place children at risk. While I strongly sympathise with my hon. Friend’s point and believe that should be taken onboard in the Ofsted’s consultation, we are not convinced that the requirement for Her Majesty’s chief inspector to circulate copies of inspections of children’s homes to every local authority placing children at such homes is the best way forward. Inspection reports on children’s homes are currently available on request by local authorities and local safeguarding children boards, and it would be inefficient to require Ofsted to create and maintain a new register of individual children at children’s homes or to collect that information on each individual inspection of a children’s home.
The Government are committed to ensuring that inspection is a fully rounded process, which takes account of all the relevant evidence, including the views of children and others with an interest, such as local authorities placing children in the home and the designated teacher at a school attended by children from the home. Primary legislation is too unwieldy to make that happen. It is essential that the inspectorate is able to tailor its approach within a broad framework to take account of individual and changing circumstances.
Ofsted’s current guidance on inspecting children’s homes is set out in its April 2007 document “Are you ready for your inspection? A guide to inspections of children’s services conducted by Ofsted.” That guidance explains to managers of establishments that they may sometimes be asked to help distribute surveys to stakeholders of their service, for example, to parents, teachers, social workers or health professionals. That is to ensure that as many people as possible linked to the service have the opportunity to express their views and to let Ofsted know what the service does well or could improve.
In practice, of course, Ofsted plans each inspection individually according to the circumstances in each children’s home using, among other sources, the children’s homes self-assessment and the inspection of children’s homes questionnaire, both of which the children’s home complete. They help the Ofsted inspectors to decide which partners should be consulted.
Regarding, for example, the designated teacher at the school attended by the children, we fully agree that it is vital that children’s homes support the education of children in their care effectively. Building strong links with the child’s school is an important part of that. Standard 14 of the “National Minimum Standards for children’s homes” says that the home should have
“an education policy that shows how the home intends to promote and support the education of children throughout the time that they live there”
and, as part of this, the child or young person’s personal education plan should
“set out which staff in the children's home have responsibility for liaising with schools.”
Ofsted’s practice means that a questionnaire on the children’s home may be sent to the designated person at the school, which would be taken into account when preparing an inspection report on the home. In addition, section 32(5) of the Care Standards Act provides that Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector must send a copy of the report to the registered person for an establishment without delay. Prompt reporting of inspection findings is of vital importance to maximise their value and impact.
New clause 38 may, by placing other formal duties on Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector before preparing every inspection report, inadvertently cause delay in reporting. In practice, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector would need to request contact details from the children’s home, request views from the specified organisation and person or persons, and take reasonable steps to seek such views. The current law allows for the seeking of views, and this is Ofsted’s general practice, but it also allows flexibility to balance seeking such views with the need for urgency.
New clause 38 would require Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector to inform local authorities placing children at a children’s home that she was preparing a report, but would not require her to seek their views. We are not persuaded of the value of such a provision. It would require Ofsted either to create and maintain a list of the placing authority for every child in every children’s home, or to seek this information in respect of each individual inspection, either of which would be administratively cumbersome. Every children’s home is inspected twice a year. Notifying local authorities twice a year before this happens would not serve any clear purpose.
The Government agree that inspections of children’s homes should seek and take account of the views of those with an interest in the effectiveness of the home, and believe that Ofsted takes steps to achieve this. Ofsted has made significant progress in terms of consulting children, parents, local authorities, providers and other key stakeholders. However, the details of how this is done in practice should not be for primary legislation. Within the broad framework set by the legislation, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is best placed to ensure a flexible and appropriate balance between seeking views and reporting promptly.
New clause 37 requires children’s home providers to collate their statistics on the number of children who go missing from children’s homes and incidences of antisocial and criminal behaviour, and to make that information available on request to the inspectorate. I entirely understand the point that my hon. Friend is making because she raises an important issue. Notwithstanding her point about reporting positive things as well in relation to young people in children’s homes, I am very sympathetic to her reasons for tabling this amendment.
In making placement decisions, local authorities should take all necessary steps to satisfy themselves that the placement is appropriate and is able to meet the assessed needs of the individual child. At an earlier sitting we discussed the factors that may give rise to antisocial and even criminal behaviour by a small minority of children placed in children’s homes. We considered, for example, the effects of inappropriate placements, a long distance from home, and of children feeling “dumped”, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham put it. Clearly, we hope that these sorts of placements will become increasingly rare as a direct result of the Bill. While it is of course important for placing authorities to take account of a wide range of information in making placement decisions, that information must be meaningful and useful. It must obviously help local authorities to make the right placement decisions.
What matters most is that children’s homes take appropriate action to address the behaviour of the children placed there through well trained staff providing the right support and care. As we have discussed, there are steps that should be taken, and the Government are taking them to ensure that that happens.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South will be aware that provisions are in place to enable the chief inspector to consider the information sought by the amendment. The Care Standards Act 2000, which provides the legislative framework for the registration and regulation of children’s homes, includes a general power to make regulations requiring the keeping of records and the notification of events occurring in establishments and agencies. The Act also contains the power for the registration authority to require an establishment or agency to provide any information that it considers necessary when carrying out an inspection.
Regulations provide that the procedure for dealing with any unauthorised absence of a child from a children’s home must be supplied to Ofsted as part of the initial application to register the home. The national minimum standards for children’s homes also refer specifically to the need for the registered person to have such a procedure in place. In addition, there is a regulatory requirement that all incidents of absconding—or whatever term we use—must be noted on the child’s record, and the placing authority must be notified of the incident.
Where there are instances of criminal behaviour, the regulations and national minimum standards are also clear about procedures for making the consequences of unacceptable behaviour clear to staff and children. Any disciplinary measures taken must be appropriate to the incident. The home is required to notify specific serious incidents to Ofsted and to the placing authority.
My hon. Friend has raised some important issues relating to statistics, but for the reasons that I have given, I think that requiring collation from individual records in the way that she suggests is not the best solution. Those are matters for professional judgment in light of the regulatory requirements, the national minimum standards and guidance, rather than for primary legislation. The national minimum standards for children’s homes are to be reviewed this year as part of a review of all sets of national minimum standards for children, and I assure my hon. Friend that the review will consider how to strengthen existing requirements and expectations in the areas that she outlined.
On that basis, I ask my hon. Friend not to press her new clauses, with the assurance that as part of the review of national minimum standards, we will consider closely how we can strengthen existing requirements through those standards.

Helen Southworth: I am of course disappointed in some ways by the Minister’s response, but I hope that it is only a temporary disappointment and that the review of minimum standards and the various regulations attached to the Bill will relieve my concerns and those of other Members. I am sure that both he and Ofsted have taken note of the fact that there is considerable interest in the House in the performance of inspectors, the transparency of inspection reports and, accepting absolutely what he said about respecting young people’s privacy in the process, the need to ensure that people making a decision about those young people have the evidence that they need to make a full and proper decision.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 27 to 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Independent review of determinations relating to adoption

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Annette Brooke: I have a brief question, which I hope the Minister can answer by speaking to the clause. Not having served on the Committee that considered the Adoption and Children Act 2002, although I have served on most Committees considering that sort of Bill, I am not sure of the clause’s full significance.

Kevin Brennan: The amendments made by clause 34 are minor and are being made so that the review mechanisms for adoption and fostering are in line with each other. Subsection (2) clarifies that applications for a review of a qualifying determination are to be made to the appropriate Minister, not to the review panel. On receipt of an application, the appropriate Minister will constitute a review panel to review the qualifying determination. Subsections (3) to (7) remove from review panels the power to recover the cost of a review from the adoption agency that made the qualifying determination under review. Instead, it will be for the appropriate Minister to determine the sum that must be paid by the adoption agency. That will be based on the cost to the appropriate Minister of performing his independent review functions. In anticipation of this question, it will not and must not include any element of profit.
The only practical change for adoption agencies is that the review panel will not include in its written recommendations an order for payment of costs. Prospective adopters will not be affected by any of these changes and there will be no additional work for adoption agencies.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35

Extension of period allowed for making regulations under section 45 or 46 of the Children Act 2004

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Hywel Williams: With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 15—Registration scheme—
‘(1) Section 45 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31) (power to establish registration scheme in England) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) omit the word “may” and insert “will within one year”.
(3) Omit section 47 of the Children Act 2004.’.

Tim Loughton: In rising to speak to the clause and the new clause that I tabled, a deep sense of dÃ(c)jÃ vu descends on me. With various hon. Members, I have debated the private fostering registration scheme on countless occasions over the past seven or eight years.
Before I state the reasons behind new clause 15, I wish to explain that we originally tabled amendment No. 22, which is one of those amendments that seeks to strike out the whole of the clause and which never get selected. Instead, it has become an adaptation new clause. Essentially, we do not want to give the Government the power to extend the sunset clause provisions relating to a possible private fostering registration scheme that were inserted into the Children Act 2004, and which expire or set in November this year. We felt that striking out the clause would have done the job, but apparently that must be put in the form of a new clause.
I do not want to go into vast detail. I simply refer the Committee to countless speeches that various hon. Members have made over the last few years on the need for a private fostering registration scheme. I refer the Committee to the 1997 Utting report, “People Like Us”, which made recommendations for a private fostering registration scheme. I refer hon. Members to the work of the joint working party on foster care in 1999, which revealed the high potential for abuse and neglect and urged regulation of private fostering in a public awareness campaign. I refer hon. Members to the Laming report in the wake of the Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) tragedy, which recommended a review of the private fostering system. I refer hon. Members to my modest ten-minute Bill, introduced on 19 March 2003, which contained three provisions, one of which was to institute a private fostering registration scheme.
It is inexplicable to many of us that the Government have avoided supporting a measure that a broad consensus of people involved in children’s issues and adoption and fostering have been saying for some time is necessary. We are confounded as to why the Government have still not gone along with it. Throughout all the years of calling for such a scheme, we have seen extensive regulation of child minding—the registration scheme has enjoyed a degree of success—and all sorts of care standards for inspection of care homes and fostering agencies, some of which we have discussed today. Numerous new adoption rights and requirements have been introduced, and hundreds of thousands of people who deal with young people have been subjected to Criminal Records Bureau checks, including me. After enormous hassle, I managed to get myself CRB checked—it is no easy feat. Nobody wants to take responsibility for that, but I thought it appropriate that the shadow Minister for Children got a CRB check, which I eventually did. We have even had legislation to clamp down on puppy farming, but still we have not had a registration scheme for private fostering.
Incredibly, people who offer their services as private foster carers, often as complete strangers, have no real compunction about not registering their services, although there are local authority registers and the notification scheme was supposedly bolstered in the 2004 Act. I shall come back in a moment to some of the words of the then Minister for Children, Young People and Families, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and some of the undertakings that she gave us when the 2004 Act was being passed. For people who are unknown to local social services departments, there can be no guarantees of quality of care or that they are accessing appropriate training, support and benefits, and no control over the number of different placements that the child will experience, which all have ramifications for the safety, welfare and well-being of children in private fostering arrangements.
We have no accurate measure of the extent of such arrangements, although some years ago, it was estimated that there are in excess of 10,000 private foster care arrangements in this country, disproportionately involving children coming from west Africa, particularly Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast—Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) came from the latter via France. I am sure that a large majority of private foster carers do a good job and pose no threat to their charges, but we simply do not know. We have no idea of the extent of the problem because the Department of Health stopped collecting data back in 1991, so inaccurate were the figures. Since 1991, regulations have brought in local registers of foster carers, but there is no real legal penalty for not registering, and many people are ignorant of the requirements.
We could look at some of the undertakings that the then Minister gave during some lively debates on the 2004 Act. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole was present, and the then hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, Hilton Dawson, who was a great advocate of a private registration scheme, voted with the Opposition in defiance of the Government to introduce it. It was pointed out that
“every report that the Government have commissioned over the past five years confirms that privately fostered children”—[Official Report, 2 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 186.]
can be “very vulnerable”. Hilton Dawson said that he could not
“honestly believe that the Government are proposing such an inadequate scheme as that expressed in clause 37”—
section 37 of the 2004 Act—
“and introducing the possibility of a registration scheme only in a sunset clause.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c. 282.]
The Government introduced enabling legislation for a private fostering registration scheme that would come into force after a certain period unless a good reason why not was found, hence a sunset clause.
What the Government intend in this Bill is to extend the sunset clause. What has changed in the intervening period such that the term of the sunset clause has to be extended? What have the Government found out in that period that has convinced them to extend the sunset clause that denies the coming into force of a private fostering registration scheme? What do we need to know in order to clear the hurdle and trigger that scheme coming into force?
The sunset clause was a sop, and the fact that the Government are now seeking to extend it without a good reason just goes to prove that it was a sop. It is a sop to mention the issue when one has no real inclination to do something about it, as I charged the then Children’s Minister with doing in 2004, and quite honestly I do not think that anything has changed to negate the charge that I made then.
In 2004, the right hon. Member for Barking, when saying that she wanted to beef up the notification scheme, admitted:
“I think that the notification scheme is not working well.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c. 285.]
I think that we all agreed with that. She went on to say, in support of the sunset clause:
“The clause is in the Bill because we want to strengthen the scheme and give it one last chance to work.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c. 288.]
That, in 2004, was the last chance, but now, apparently, there is another last chance. The Government need to make a case and justify why this is proving to be a very long sunset indeed. Will we ever see the dawn of a private fostering registration scheme, which so many of us have wanted for so many years?
I am at a loss to see how the notification scheme can have been deemed a success. As at 31 March 2007—the last year for which we have figures—1,250 children were reported as being cared for and accommodated in private fostering arrangements in England, and 1,010 private fostering arrangements ended during the previous year, so we are still well short of the 10,000 private fostering arrangements that are estimated to exist. We still do not know who is involved in those arrangements.
Another reason for beefing up the provision in 2004 was to publicise the existence of notification schemes and the legal requirement to register with them. A survey was carried out back in 2005 by The Voice newspaper; it was particularly focused on black private fostering arrangements in London, where we know there has been a problem, of which the Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) case was just one example. That survey found that of the respondents, about 35 per cent.—just one third—knew about private fostering. Twenty-one per cent. of the respondents were from Africa and of those, although 31 per cent. said that they knew about private fostering, only half of them actually knew what it meant. Thirty-five per cent. of respondents said that they knew about private fostering, but when probed further, it was found that only 15 per cent. actually did know what it was about. There was a pretty low recognition level, particularly among a key target client group.
Part of the raison d’Ãªtre behind the changes made by the Minister in charge of the Children Bill in 2004 was to promote better awareness. Local authorities were charged with making potential or existing private fosterers in their area aware of the requirement to register under the scheme. However, three or four years on, in January this year, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering carried out a further survey of Londoners and came up with an even worse result, showing that few professionals working with children understand what private fostering is. In a YouGov survey, using an even bigger sample than the original survey, adults living in London were asked what they thought it meant for a child to be privately fostered and they were offered a series of possible answers. Only 18 per cent. picked the correct definition. Furthermore, only 16 per cent. knew that the parent and carer, when making private fostering arrangements, must notify the local authority in the area where the child will live and that failure to do so is an offence. Two hundred professionals who come into regular contact with children were surveyed, including teachers, teaching assistants, doctors and nurses, and what is really worrying is that only 18 per cent. of them knew the correct definition of private fostering, despite the fact that professionals working with children obviously play a vital role in identifying privately fostered children. It would appear from that evidence that the publicity and promotion of the existing notification process has been an abysmal failure. How much money was spent on it and what results do the Government think have been gained? The surveying of key target audiences has shown that if it has had any impact, it has been a negative one.
I also asked at that time how many people have been prosecuted for not registering with the notification scheme. The Minister did not know the figure but admitted that it was probably very low. I would like to know how many have now been prosecuted for failing to register. I hazard a guess that the number remains very low. That scheme was supposedly beefed up and bolstered by the Children Act 2004 and the intention was to initiate a promotion and awareness campaign. That campaign has singularly failed to promote awareness, to attract the sizeable number of those likely to be involved in private fostering arrangements in this country to register, or to bring any increase in the number of prosecutions of those not complying with the supposedly beefed-up legislation.

Kerry McCarthy: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that children who are parked with friends or relatives because their parents have gone into custody are particularly at risk in that situation?

Committee suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—

Kerry McCarthy: As I was saying, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman agrees that children whose parents are serving custodial sentences could be at risk if they were placed with friends or family for the duration of those sentences. Does he think that we should have better local monitoring and recording of children who fall into that category, particularly as it would allow schools to keep an eye on their welfare?

Tim Loughton: The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. She may not realise it, but that is the subject of a campaign being run by the Catholic diocese of Liverpool on the vulnerability of children whose parents find themselves in the custody system. It is a fair point, but I shall not let it take us down a completely separate byway. However, it is another aspect of the issue that requires attention.
I have slightly forgotten where I was before the Division and before the hon. Lady’s intervention. Rather than start again, I shall begin my conclusion. The point that I have been trying to make—I am sure that other Opposition Members concur—is that the time has surely come for a proper, formal registration scheme for private fostering arrangements. I do not claim that it will be a universal panacea. It will not be easy to police, and it will not be foolproof. I certainly do not want to play the nanny state card, having the state interfere with children who legitimately attend boarding schools or language schools, or children on holiday exchanges and so on, who have often been set up as the problem.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—

Tim Loughton: I said when I started speaking to the new clause that I had a sense of dÃ(c)jÃ vu—this is the third wave of dÃ(c)jÃ vu this sitting. I will try to bring my comments to a speedy conclusion before the House divides again and I again have to try to pick up where I left off.
The point is that we need a private fostering registration scheme, which the un-sunsetted clause would provide. That national register of private foster carers would be available to birth parents who wished to pursue a private fostering arrangement, and it would enable local authorities to ensure that standards of care were suitable and appropriate help and support was offered. Such a scheme could also deter private foster carers who had fallen foul of local authority or authorised foster agency inspections, but had not committed offences sufficiently serious for them to be put on the Department for Children, Schools and Families watch list.
In conclusion, the Government have not made the case for why the scheme should not now come into force. In our deliberations on the Children Bill in 2004, the then Minister for Children, Young People and Families said that
“we will require the local safeguarding boards to have regard to how well or otherwise private fostering arrangements are being implemented.”
I would very much like to hear whether the findings of the local safeguarding children boards have coloured the Government’s thinking regarding not going ahead with the scheme. The then Children’s Minister clearly said that
“the notification scheme has not worked—there has not been compliance with the regulatory framework.”
She went on to say that
“if this final attempt to get the notification scheme to work is not successful, we would have to examine an alternative, despite the many concerns that we have about the alternatives.”
She described the positive disincentive of the scheme as it then stood. Finally, she said that
“if we fail in our endeavours to make the notification scheme work, we will not need to return to the House with primary legislation and we will implement the registration scheme, despite our concerns about whether it will work as well as everyone would like it to.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 21 October 2004; c. 289-91.]
It was quite clear four years ago that unless there was overwhelming evidence to show that the notification scheme was working, this section of the Children Act 2004 would come into force. Why are the Government seeking to extend the sunset clause again? When is a sunset not a sunset? How many more chances will they give to show that the notification scheme works, or as we think, that it simply does not work, before we have the private fostering registration scheme for which a wide cross-section of people have been calling for many years? On that basis, I commend new clause 15 to the Committee.

Annette Brooke: I support the new clause wholeheartedly. We have discussed this issue on many occasions. The speeches were getting more and more polished, but I will be brief tonight.
We discussed this issue under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 because we were concerned that if we did not know about private fostering arrangements, there were children who effectively were not being safeguarded. That is quite a serious point. We are talking about potentially vulnerable children, perhaps with limited or no contact with their parents. There is a real need to prevent such vulnerable children from slipping through the net.
I am staggered at how low the notifications are. Have the Government have made their own assessment of numbers in private fostering? It would be interesting to hear that. We work on the basis of the estimate of 10,000. How do the Government intend to do better than they have done over the last four years? In other words, what more are they going to do to increase the level of notifications? The Government indicated when discussing the Children Act 2004 that there would be monitoring and reporting back from local authorities. Do we have any idea if some local authorities are progressing with the notifications better than others?
Thirdly, what will be the criteria for assessing whether voluntary schemes are working? All we know is that there is a judgment that two years is not long enough. I am not convinced that we need another three years. There is no movement of any significance in the numbers of notifications. It could be dangerous to allow this process to hang on for another three years. I agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham that this is something that we should just get on and do.

Kevin Brennan: The new clause would require the Secretary of State to make regulations within one year to establish a registration scheme for private foster carers. It does not specify when that year would begin, but I presume that it would be the date on which the Bill is passed. It does not make any provision regarding the establishment of a registration scheme in Wales. We have heard that the intention in tabling the new clause was based on the concern over how well children are protected under the current private fostering arrangements as well as to press for an early implementation of the registration scheme.
Having sat on the Committee for the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and discussed the matter on the other occasions that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I understand the point that he is making. We have a common aim of trying to ensure that the right safeguards are in place to protect privately fostered children and help place them on a more equal footing with other children, and a number of things have been achieved. I want to make it absolutely clear to the Committee that we have not abandoned the idea of a registration scheme. Because of the progress of the notification scheme so far, we feel that we simply do not have the evidence to justify the move right now.
I want to be clear about the progress that has been achieved over the past three years. To develop our evidence base, we have successfully established mechanisms for the collection of more robust baseline data. We have also instituted a three year inspection process, which began in April 2006 when the CSCI had responsibility for inspecting local authorities’ procedures for checking and monitoring private fostering arrangements. That responsibility was passed to Ofsted in April 2007. At the same time, the local authorities had been working hard to raise awareness of the notification requirements, implement them more effectively and build more trust in the relationships with local communities.
Raising awareness cannot simply be achieved through disseminating leaflets and other publicity material, important though that is. It requires building stronger relationships with communities, and it will take time to embed the practice of notification in all areas. Next January, the Department for Children, Schools and Families is making available £50,000 for the British Association of Adoption and Fostering to fund a national awareness-raising week in January 2009 on the notification arrangements.
I acknowledge hon. Members’ concerns, and clearly it will take time for the practice of notification in all areas to improve, even with the measures that we have taken. It is perhaps fair to say that it was over-optimistic to predict when we were passing the 2004 Act that we would have got as far by now as the hon. Gentleman would like, but I make no apology for wanting to get that right. Our evidence so far tells us that there is scope to improve the implementation of the current arrangements and points to some good examples of good practice. The first year’s inspection evidence revealed that 50 local authorities showed some very good and improving practice as well as some other areas where there was a lot of room for improvement.

Andrew Turner: Why is the Minister prepared to go so slowly in the case of private fostering arrangements when others were happy to be in favour of fast legislation, such as that relating to fox hunting?

Kevin Brennan: Because in acknowledging that the Government have by no means abandoned the idea of a registration scheme, we also acknowledge that there are also difficulties with a registration scheme—I think that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham went some way towards acknowledging that in his remarks. It is right to first gather further evidence on the notification scheme before proceeding to a registration scheme that could and would catch many families—the hon. Gentleman often raises the point of the state intrusion in family life. We do not necessarily want to insist on a registration scheme, and yet we have not abandoned it. We want to give the changes that have been made the correct amount of time so that we can collect the evidence that is necessary to make that judgment.
Therefore, we are not yet convinced of the need to move into a registration scheme, and how best to safeguard children in private fostering is simply not that clear cut. The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that a registration scheme might not be a panacea for all the difficulties with private fostering and that a rushed and heavy-handed implementation of the scheme might deter some people from private fostering who might otherwise be able to offer support in difficult family situations.

Edward Timpson: Will the Minister give us an assurance that he supports the principle that private fostering arrangements are there to protect vulnerable children? Is the only barrier to moving to that scheme a lack of the evidence that he requires to bring that principle to bear?

Kevin Brennan: I think that the hon. Gentleman meant the principle of a registration scheme for private fostering. That is how I interpreted his remarks. I have made it clear that the Government are not yet convinced that that is the best way to deal with private fostering. On the other hand, we have not abandoned the idea that registration might be the best way. We simply want to ensure that the evidence on the notification scheme is full and clear.
I stress that we are supported in that view by the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, which works extensively on private fostering. The BAAF agrees that we should seek to ensure that the current arrangements operate effectively and evaluate them more fully before deciding whether to introduce a registration scheme. In my view, it would not be in the interest of children or those who work with them to do otherwise.
The intended effect of the new clause seems to be that within the next year, the Secretary of State would have to make regulations in respect of England to establish a registration scheme for private foster carers. We believe that before moving to that scheme, we need to evaluate the existing notification scheme, having taken the measures that I outlined to make it more effective. Then we need to consider whether such a regime would be more effective than what we have at present and what its added value would be.
If we then decide to move to registration, we will have to draft and consult on the regulations. All of that would take more than the year proposed in the new clause anyway. We must ensure enough time to gather the necessary evidence, analyse it and make a sound, evidence-based decision. The key problem is that we have only one full year’s data on the number of private fostering arrangements under the strengthened notification scheme. By 2010, we will have three full years of data as well as the results of three years of inspection by Ofsted, and we will know the impact of further activity to raise notification levels.
We are determined to improve the current arrangements and explore to what extent they might be improved. We are writing to local authorities to remind them of their duties in relation to private fostering, and Government offices are working with local authorities, particularly poor performers, to improve notification rates. We are also exploring links with other related policies, such as those concerning missing children, to ensure that information about private fostering is included in the relevant guidance.
We mentioned BAAF’s awareness-raising week in January 2009. It is right to retain the option to introduce a registration scheme for the further years envisaged in the Bill so that we can ensure that if the case for it is compelling, a registration scheme can be introduced at the right time, after the assessment of the strengthened notification scheme.
I know that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham does not want us to go any further on our journey down Sunset Boulevard in relation to the clause, but it is appropriate, having strengthened the notification scheme, to give it an opportunity to provide evidence whether it can work. That is a practical and pragmatic way forward, and I propose that he should withdraw his amendment.

Tim Loughton: The Minister has succeeded in driving disappointment to new heights. That was pretty weak. I am a big fan of sunset clauses in legislation, but the point of sunset clauses is that the sun must set some time, and this is proving to be a long, protracted sunset.
The Minister prayed in aid BAAF, for which another £50,000 will be made available for an awareness scheme. BAAF’s position when we last discussed the matter was this:
“The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) believes the best way to protect and safeguard privately fostered children is by implementing a registration and approval system for the most vulnerable children”.
BAAF, along with so many other agencies and organisations involved with vulnerable children, thinks that a private fostering registration scheme is the way ahead. I do not get why the Government want to prevaricate on this one.
I quote from the closing comments of the then Minister for Children, Young People and Families, the right hon. Member for Barking:
“if we fail in our endeavours to make the notification scheme work, we will not need to return to the House with primary legislation and we will implement the registration scheme”.——[Official Report, Children Public Bill [Lords] Committee, 19 October 2004; c. 291.]
This Minister also used the language, “We haven’t abandoned it yet.”
The Minister has produced absolutely no evidence why the Government should have gone lukewarm on the scheme after all our considerations in 2004. I asked him for evidence from the local safeguarding children boards, as he did not mention them once. Where did that evidence come from? There is anecdotal evidence of a few examples of best practice. Great. But it still produced only a small number of adherents to the existing notification scheme. He said that there is no evidence right now after a further three years. What further evidence will it take? He said—another get-out—that they had just established a mechanism for the collection of more robust data. How long does it take before they have the systems to collect sufficiently robust data?
He said—yet another get-out—that it is about building stronger relationships with communities. It has always been about building stronger relationships with communities but they have singularly failed to get that message across to those highest target communities. He then said that it was perhaps an over-optimistic prediction. This really is very weak. He also said that there would be difficulties setting up a scheme. I acknowledge that, but it does not mean that those difficulties are insurmountable. They have had 11 years since Sir William Utting first mentioned this whole registration scheme. That is 11 years to get round those difficulties and still they need more time.
They are not going to have much more time. The sun is about to set on the Government. They will not be in a position to do anything about this sunset clause. So I offer the Minister a deal: will he reconsider his comments so we can re-examine this on Report in the light of what Opposition Members have said? We have urged him just to get on and do it. We will table a more comprehensive amendment on Report which will take in Wales and make it clear that a registration scheme will be triggered within a year of the Bill becoming law. On that basis, we offer him one last chance to trigger the sunset clause or, I fear, he will succumb to the inevitable. A new day will dawn for the private foster registration, just as a new day will dawn for the electorate as a whole in the not too distant future.
So on that basis, I urge the Minister to think again. The feelings on this are deeply held. They have been widely canvassed. I was deeply disappointed that yet again he came back with not a shred of new evidence for why the Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) should not have been taken at her word four years ago. This sunset clause should now trigger the implementation of this registration scheme. On the basis of giving him notification that I intend to bring this back in an amended form on Report, I will not press the new clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 36 to 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clauses 40 to 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Clauses 43 and 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 45

Short title

Amendment made: No. 25, in clause 45, page 30, line 5, leave out subsection (2).—[Kevin Brennan.]

Clause 45, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Michael Foster.]

Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes past Seven o'clock till Thursday 3 July at Nine o'clock.